| dc.description.abstract |
The idea of human agency shifts the locus of the self from the ‘what’ to the
‘who’ question, i.e. from the Cartesian rationalism or Platonic soul-substance to the
domain of action and responsibility. The identity question is about an agent – a moral
agent who, as Ricoeur says, is an ‘acting and suffering being’. However, the quest for
‘who am I?’ does not individuate the self in the sense of representing the personal
identity-profile that complements the dialogical-communicative self, though it is true
that there is an existential constitution of individuality that depends upon but is not
reducible to some larger meaning-giving structure of social reality. Burdened with the
loads of “who” questions concerning accountability and social responsibility, the quest
for identity expanses onto the horizon of historical consciousness. It unties its bondage
from the logic of ‘I can’ and ‘I do’, from the centre-stage of the present (which is
assertive of one’s identity), and merges with the larger domain of historical
consciousness that yields identity in the articulation of the three-fold present. |
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